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Animal advocates celebrating end of five-yearly festival are warned the tradition of sacrifice of living beings runs deep

Animals are herded into large open-air pens to be slaughtered without stunning

EXPERTS are advising caution as campaigners celebrate the announcement that the world’s biggest animal-beheading frenzy will end.

The bloody festival of Gadhimai in Nepal may not be entirely over, they warned, as religious beliefs and rituals run deep in Hindu culture – and just this week evidence emerged of human ritual sacrifice in the country.

The festival, held every five years, involves decapitating hundreds of thousands of buffalo and other animals in giant pens without stunning, using knives and swords.Continue reading →

LAST week, a circus-style show came to town in Powys, Wales. It promised live entertainment every night for nine nights. But it wasn’t accompanied by any of the usual circus fanfare – perhaps because organisers knew the higher the profile, the more ire it would attract.

The star “performers” are two lions and three tigers, giants of the African plains and Asian jungle, who spend their lives being transported around Britain and Ireland in cages. When not on show, there is nothing for them to do but pace their tiny spaces restlessly, irritably, or lie imprisoned.

Anyone with a modicum of sensitivity who has seen footage of – or witnessed first hand – a big cat repetitively prowling a cage, with barely enough turning room, can be in no doubt about what confinement does to these dignified animals.Continue reading →